Conference mania – the tree holocaust!
by Gil Rosen

I am hectically preparing for 3GSM in Barcelona next week. A great venue by all standards. As a presenter, there is a mountain of collateral to prepare - the service overview, the technical white paper, the content provider offering, the mobile operator offering, the stand background, the poster, the this, the that.

So here I am trying to do what most people do before a show and then it strikes me what a waste it all is. We all know but hardly admit that most of these papers will be thrown away or at best looked at very briefly. And what do we do about it? Nothing.

This stupid (sorry, couldn’t find a better word) march of industry clones that exchange papers from one hand to the next and on to the closest waste basket. We often even deliver the paper overseas and back into our offices and then throw it or put it on some shelf to stand there as a silent testimonial “we were there” … but rarely look at it again. The one or two times we do take another look is come preparation time for the next show – then we pick it up and see what interesting ideas we can use for this year’s show – and so the paper parade continues and no-one is shouting that the king has no clothes.

It’s not that the information within is useless, it has some (limited) value. That too is usually filled with empty promises and a stack load of buzzwords. That I could take. But why for heaven’s sake do we need to kill so many trees in the process?

The same info, the same sheets should not leave their original electronic formats. They should stay on websites, PCs, USB drives, you name it – put please do not print it.

We can be very critical of our politicians for not doing enough to save the world BUT WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT in our closed garden? NADA.

I would like to see the first mobile / web / telecom etc. tradeshow pick up the challenge and declare – PRINTABLE MATERIALS ARE BANNED!

Simple and to the point. It will not harm the venue quality, even help it. All these carry-on bags are useless. You want to give me something – tell me where to look it up online, transfer me an electronic file. Anything but paper.

It is we that are destroying the forests in Brazil, not someone else! Its about time we put an end to this killing spree.

Gil Rosen

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